Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant
Release Date: July 28th, 2009 Blurb: Based on the blockbuster Xbox game, this is the stunning story of the men and women who stood between a planet and total destruction–and now have to face the consequences of their actions. After a brutal fifteen-year war for survival, the Coalition of Ordered Governments is forced to destroy mankind’s last city in a final bid to stop the Locust Horde. As the survivors flee Jacinto, they must contend with the last of the Locust, bent on vengeance, as they struggle to stay alive in an icy wilderness. Marcus Fenix, Dom Santiago, and their fellow Gears fight to get Jacinto’s refugees to a safe haven, but find themselves in a lawless new world where the enemy is human–and as desperate and dangerous as any grub. Plot Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant follows two storylines: one begins hours after the flooding of Jacinto as seen in Gears of War 2, and the other flashes back to 13 years earlier, one year and one month after E-Day. Flashback Storyline The flashback storyline opens two monthsGears of War:Jacinto's Remnant p. 52 after Richard Prescott assumes the Chairmanship of the Coalition of Ordered Governments due to the sudden death of the previous Chairman, Dalyell. Prescott wants to organize the remaining nations of Sera to counterattack the Locust Horde, but each nation is too worried about its own survival to spare its forces. With the Locust only weeks away from crushing the COG capital of Ephyra, Prescott decides to do the unthinkable: use the Hammer of Dawn satellite grid to destroy anything the Locust could use against humanity, and hopefully cripple Locust forces in the process. Prescott meets with his Cabinet and Adam Fenix, the creator of the Hammer of Dawn grid, to inform them that he will give the entire human population of Sera three days' warning to evacuate to Ephyra before it is closed off by the Fortification Act and the Hammer system is activated. Even though it will be impossible for many refugees to make the journey in time and the Hammer of Dawn strikes will destroy every human population center, dooming millions, Prescott asserts that there is no other choice and it is too late to do anything else. Adam Fenix is able to work out a schedule for the Hammer of Dawn strikes, and despite his guilt over designing the weapons and being responsible for genocide, he too realizes that it is too late for any other plans. In preparation for the strikes, the COG recalls as many Gears from around the world as it can, then issues the evacuation warning. The Hammer of Dawn is activated three days later by Prescott, General Bardry Salaman, and Colonel Victor Hoffman. Afterwards, Hoffman and Delta Squad scout the regions wiped out by the strikes to search for evidence of the Locust Horde's defeat. The flashback storyline ends as a human survivor they find refuses their help, blaming the COG for killing her family and leaving them "stranded." Main Storyline The second storyline opens three hours after Jacinto was flooded, as the COG and Jacinto's remaining citizens are evacuated to Port Farrall in the aftermath. With no other safe haven to go to, the cold, dreary settlement of Port Farrall becomes the home of the COG and Delta Squad for the next seven weeks. The Locust Horde was dealt a potentially fatal blow with the flooding of the Hollow, and while there are sporadic attacks on Port Farrall, it appears that the threat they posed to humanity has been all but eliminated. Seeking a more habitable location to rebuild humanity, Chairman Prescott chooses the island of Vectes; the island was a former COG naval base in the Pendulum Wars, could support a population of thousands, and is on the other side of a marine trench that is too deep for the Locust to tunnel under. Delta Squad, comprised of Marcus Fenix, Dominic Santiago, Bernadette Mataki, Augustus Cole, Damon Baird, and Anya Stroud is dispatched to survey Vectes. To their surprise, they discover that the island, once called "Toxin Town" for the chemical weapons developed there and still technically quarantined, was pristine and inhabited by COG citizens. The town of Pelruan had been built to maintain the Vectes Naval Base, and its three thousand people have become self-sufficient after losing contact with the mainland following the Hammer of Dawn strikes. The people of Pelruan had gathered some news of the wider world from refugees and Stranded, but had been left unaware that Ephyra had fallen and 99% of Sera's population had perished since. Within two weeks, the COG moves the survivors of Jacinto to Vectes Naval Base and begins expanding the infrastructure. Prescott hopes to make the island into "New Jacinto," a place from which the rest of Sera could be repopulated. Later, as the COG attempt to locate and destroy the settlements of Stranded in the nearby islands that have been raiding Vectes' fishing trawlers, they capture Jonn Massy, a local Stranded leader who raped Bernie Mataki in the past. While meeting with the "Lesser Islands Free Trade Area," a Stranded association, to trade Massy for a cease-fire, the COG's plans take several unexpected turns. A rival group of Stranded had attacked the LIFTA's negotiation ships; the other group promises peace with the COG in exchange for Massy, who they want to execute as a criminal. After Massy is traded, the Stranded ship is destroyed by torpedoes. The attacker reveals itself as a submarine controlled by Gorasnaya, one of the small "Indie" nations that had refused to submit to the COG after the Union of Independent Republics surrendered at the end of the Pendulum Wars. Captain Tescu offers his submarine and the location of an Imulsion drilling platform in exchange for refuge for Gorasnaya's four thousand surviving people. The story ends as Delta Squad is deployed to investigate a Vectes farm that had been raided by the local Stranded faction. Dom Santiago wonders if the Locust fought among themselves as humans did; the new war against the Stranded insurgency would be a war that many Gears had never fought before. References Category:Books